Tips & Tools Weekly (Vol 11, No. 13)

10 Apr, 2006

Untitled Document

What's New at Cadalyst.com

Cadalyst Daily Update For all the latest news and new products, subscribe to Cadalyst Daily e-newsletter. Plus, every issue includes a feature you won’t find anywhere else -- hardware and CAD software reviews, success stories, AutoCAD tips and much more! Here’s a sample of what you missed in the past week:

Hot Tip Harry Forums
Have you been to visit Harry lately? He has two new discussion forums on the Cadalyst Web site. In his Requests forum, Harry helps AutoCAD users locate those favorite but long-lost routines for speeding up tasks (AutoLISP, VBA and more). In his Help! forum, Harry and friends offer answers to problems and questions related to CAD programming and customization. Check it out!

Peer Inside AutoCAD 2007Thank you to reader Ed Jobe, who wrote to remind us that you can find in-depth previews of many of the new capabilities of AutoCAD 2007 in the New Features Workshop, available free on the Autodesk Web site.

New CAD Standards vBook RetrieveMedia has released United States National CAD Standard vBook ($250 members, $350 nonmembers). In it, users can access the official National CAD Standard v3.1 rules and regulations. The digital book’s content is presented in a combination of narrated screen capture videos, audio narration and traditional text and diagrams, with full search functionality.

New Open Source Web SiteSoftware provider OpenMFG has made available a new community web site that offers mail, forums, blogs, a public bug tracker, expanded documentation and downloads for the open source community. The site is free and open to everyone; registered users have access to enhanced services.

A 2D Take on AutoCAD's Align Command Ronald K. Yahr writes with a tip he describes as an AutoCAD oldie but goodie, which he says he still uses all the time.

"One of my favorite commands is Align. Traditionally it's used to move, scale and rotate entities from one UCS to another by defining three source and destination points. The command has been around a long time and is a 3D operation found on the Modify menu. I use Align as a basic 2D tool to align JPEG, TIFF or any other image or entity to line work. Align asks for three sets of source/destination points to define a plane, but providing the third set of points is optional. When you press Enter at the third prompt, Align becomes a 2D operation, moving, scaling and rotating the entities only on the plane where they reside. Align is more basic than rubber sheeting, but gets the job done quickly under most circumstances."

Follow Up: Block Redefine Without Exploding Stephen F. Crosley wrote to follow up on the Block Redefine Without Exploding tip in last week's Tips & Tools Weekly. "The tip involved AutoCAD's Wipeout command. This procedure can also be done quite easily using AutoCAD’s Refedit command. It works with both blocks and xrefs."

More About OsnapsThe March 20 and March 27 editions of Tips and Tools Weekly presented tips about setting and resetting osnaps in AutoCAD. A few more readers wrote to chime in on the subject:

Stephen Rien wrote, "In the March 27 edition, a tip explained how to set osnaps to F keys, something I'd been doing for the past 18 years or so. However, the tip as listed works only through AutoCAD 2005. With the release of AutoCAD 2006, the CMU file replaced the MNU file, and you have to enter this information differently. Perhaps someone could show this new process, which is a bit more involved?"

Brent Stewart and Greg G. Tattersall each sent a short LISP routine, providing readers with two more options for quickly setting osnaps. Click here to download both sets of code.

Stewart says of his osnap preset routine, "We wrote the code back in AutoCAD R10 days and update the snap values with each new version of AutoCAD. We use several preset object snap quick commands, run using either Command line or toolbar. Commands run silently, so you have no flashing up of lines on the text screen."

Tattersall writes, "Our company has multiple disciplines and many operators across a network and everyone likes their settings a little different, so I added an icon in our company standard toolbar for everyone to use. The icon loads a LISP routine that retrieves the user's login name or initials and runs a script file with the same name. Users just have to create their own custom script.

"The code I developed is for everyone else. I myself have the LISP code (minus the alerts) at the end of my ACAD.LSP file. This ensures my script runs every time I open a drawing."

Send us your tip or shortcut for your favorite CAD software. If we publish it, we'll send you a “Cadalyst: CAD the Way You Want It” t-shirt.

Autodesk Land Desktop BookCadapult Software Solutions has released the training book Digging Into Autodesk Land Desktop 2006. This update of the 2004 book is intended for three-day, instructor-led training; however, it also works well for classes of any duration, as well as for self-study, according to Rick Ellis, the author and Cadapult CEO.

GeoWeb Call for Papers Deadline ExtendedThe volume of requests has prompted GeoWeb 2006 organizers to extend the call for papers deadline to April 17, 2006. GeoWeb 2006, a conference addressing Web-based geographic information systems, is organized by Galdos Systems and supported by GITA (Geospatial Information & Technology Association). It will be held July 24–28, 2006, in Vancouver, British Columbia.

In her easy-to-follow, friendly style, long-time Cadalyst contributing editor and Autodesk Technical Evangelist Lynn Allen guides you through a new feature or time-saving trick in every episode of her popular AutoCAD video tips. Subscribe to the free Cadalyst Video Picks newsletter and we'll notify you every time a new video tip is published. All exclusively from Cadalyst!